The proliferation of unstructured data seen this year is poised to accelerate in 2019 and BDEX stands ready with an infrastructure built to power human connectivity.

One of the recurring themes to emerge in 2018 was data overload. The ability of humans to generate data continued to outstrip our ability to understand and act on it. In 2019, there will be the additional challenge of structuring the growing torrent of data from so many disparate sources.

Amid all the excitement about the convergence of Big Data, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the Internet of Things (IoT), however, some still ask if all the data is going to make us any smarter? Is it really going to make marketing more efficient, more precise, more effective?

At BDEX we are confident it will because we have spent the last five years building a proprietary data infrastructure to power human connectivity. Today, our platform tracks more 800 million connections between email and mobile IDs and cookie and email IDs to make sure we can connect our customers to the right people on the right device at the right time. We have curated more than 5,500 data classifications that enable our analysts to produce targeted customer lists with unprecedented accuracy, granularity, and speed.

We see the value of these investments being validated every day in the marketplace. As 2018 draws to a close, it seems like a good time to review how and why we have built our infrastructure and what marketers can do with it. So here is a curated list of some of the articles we published on our blog last year.

We look forward to publishing new articles next year and will strive to make them as accurate, timely and actionable as our data. Stay tuned.

Data-driven solutions taking shape on the shop floor will match gender, age, ethnicity, and shopping habits to what’s on offer now

The days of aimlessly wandering the store in search of a deal or a “you” item look to soon be over. Brick and mortar retailers are embracing the latest in data technology to recognize and serve visitors like never before. Device matching, real-time targeting, and even budding facial recognition tech are eroding the notion of searching for a new customer. It’s now possible to know someone who wants to buy the moment they walk in.

How real-time data provides the most actionable marketing possible

Speed of transmission and lack of detail were two old enemies of in-store marketing. They’re becoming obsolete in an era where almost the instant a customer expresses an interest in/buys a product, a retailer can be notified and be able to target that individual with relevant content.

How is this possible? Smart uses of data like device matching and geofencing are two methods which create a purchasing portrait of prospects across every major demographic. Device matching with BDEX allows retailers to market to consumers across multiple devices and channels as the data link a consumer’s search/purchase activity via mobile, email, social media, and other avenues.

Geofencing creates a data map of all the physical retail locations a potential prospect has visited. This is useful because it shows they’re actively and physically searching for an item or service. Internet browsing data is valuable, but geofencing further isolates a consumer who’s actually visited a certain type of business. This is one of the reasons why BDEX data can drive and support in-store marketing so effectively.

We repeatedly test our data to authenticate its accuracy and currency to sidestep the pitfalls of outdated or “too broad” data – and we enable our customers to buy only the data they need. Our tailored approach allows retailers to create a dynamically-informed marketing effort that never sleeps. Actionable prospects can be marketed to in their home, via their mobile device on the go, and even when they visit your location.

The latest in-store marketing is a customer service gold mine

When a prospect has entered a store, data has the potential to really close a sale. Modern digital signage can be updated on a single screen or storewide to display offers relevant to specific viewers. Imagine a scenario where a prospect checks in and you know exactly whom is watching your in-store screen – and precisely what they’d been browsing only an hour before.

Interactive digital displays provide the same tactile satisfaction as customer cell phones or other touchscreen devices. In fact, this in-store marketing sector is set to exceed $20 billion by 2024. Nevertheless, all the digital signs in the world are just flashy eye-catchers without being powered by actionable data.

Who’s marketing in-store and why it’s working

Ralph Lauren has integrated in-store digital into their changing rooms to powerful effect. Embracing this kind of innovation has provided real-time data on customer purchases (or lack thereof) and tripled their sales forecast while increasing customer engagement by 90%. McDonald’s is realizing the potential of onsite touch screens as an alternative to face to face orders. They’re also reviewing cell phone ordering, along with other chains that have successfully implemented the technology.

The supermarket sector (including the Walmart brand) understands how data is vital to staying competitive. They’re using it to engage in-store customers in a personal manner. The retail giant has even registered multiple patents to take their data-driven marketing into the future, an effort that sees them calculating 2.5 petabytes of data … every hour!

Clearly, the potential for data-driven in-store marketing is vast. Customers engaged by relevant, real-time data will interact further with your brand, providing even more data to enrich your understanding of that customer’s needs and build a lasting relationship. Current and future technology will allow stores and customers to connect at every point on the retail journey – from first thought to final checkout.

BDEX is the first-ever Data Exchange Platform (DXP). The BDEX DXP and DAAS platforms enable companies to acquire impartial, quality-scored third-party data reaching the right people at the right time. You can call at (917) 410 – 6616 or email us at info@bdex.com

And how it saves companies time and money while supercharging marketing campaigns

These days, you can’t throw a rock without hitting data (or at least somebody talking about data). And data fusion has become a common buzzword in business, and especially with marketing.

While it’s true that modern data collection and analysis are essential when it comes to targeting prospects, there are a number of things that have to be considered. First of all, the data has to be relevant and actionable in order to be useful. On top of that, it has to be easy to obtain, understand, and utilize. Many data companies fall well short in all of these regards, which is one of the reasons many businesses turn to BDEX.

Out with the old

The traditional way for companies to get data and leverage it in-house is to buy it from several different places and then have data scientists aggregate it. This involves investing in a platform and paying database administrators and analysts to store, manage, and make sense of it. Once the data goes into one of these platforms, companies have to verify and cross-reference it across consumer identities and disparate sources. Not only does this involve a significant amount of work and expense, this inefficient method doesn’t always produce the best results – or leverage the best sources.

In with the new

With our Data Exchange Platform (DXP), we aggregate the best data sources while saving our customers a lot of time and money. The main reason the DXP is so powerful is due to the uniform taxonomy we’ve built. When data comes into the platform from dozens or even hundreds of different sources, immediately it gets sorted, verified, and otherwise aggregated. Plus, because of our device graph – which is one of the most extensive in the U.S. – we can take data from any source and unify devices at the consumer level. All of this allows users to search all of the sources across more than 5,000 categories with a single query.

Always authentic data

Another unique aspect of the DXP is that we can authenticate the data. In many instances, the same data comes from a variety of different sources, which can result in incomplete or wrong examples of information. For example, one source may say that someone is male, while another says they’re female. But we have the ability to fully authenticate the quality of the data by looking at numerous sources that say the same things – separating them from those that don’t.

Access to millions of consumers and billions of their emails and devices

Our DXP is essentially a one-stop shop for all data needs. We give companies access to 290 million consumer identities and around 1.3 billion email addresses. We also have more than a billion device IDs. This means that even if someone regularly uses more than one device, through cross-device matching, we will know which ones are linked to a specific person.

Get the most out of your 2019 marketing budget

Marketing often takes up a large chunk of company budgets and it’s often inefficient – but actionable, highly-detailed data that targets prospects whom are currently looking to purchase your product or service get the most out of this spend. If you’re putting together your marketing plan for 2019, let BDEX help you find the individuals who are ready to buy. Get in touch with us now to learn about everything we offer.

See how quickly you’ll be able to gain valuable insight

These days, it’s impossible to talk about marketing without mentioning data. We now live in a world where almost everybody has information somewhere online, and smart organizations know that most of it is readily accessible.

It used to be difficult for businesses to gather detailed data on their customers, but that’s no longer the case. In fact, one of the biggest issues now is the opposite: there’s just too much of it. You can easily collect pages and pages of demographics, past behaviors, and numbers, but then there’s the matter of wading through everything in order to find the stuff that’s relevant to your business. And when you do find what could be useful, it may be outdated, incomplete, or too vague.

The key to using data effectively is specificity.

It’s not enough anymore to get a general idea of the wants and needs of your customers; painting them with a broad brush won’t give you the results you are looking for. But knowing what individual people are interested in buying can immediately give you the most fruitful leads, and this is where our Taxonomy Explorer tool can be a huge asset.

How the Taxonomy Explorer tool works

At BDEX, we have more than 900 billion data points businesses can use. While that’s certainly a lot of data to sift through, our Taxonomy Explorer tool makes it simple to find detailed and pertinent information. This allows you to locate your ideal customers while saving time and money.

Unique users

The first thing to think about when utilizing the Taxonomy Explorer is what type of unique users you’re looking for. You can search for people through email, mobile devices, browser cookies, and postal addresses. You can choose one, all, or a combination.

Industry

The next step is selecting an industry. We have more than 300 industries to pick from, and you can also put in a search term to narrow down the results. For example, let’s say that your business involves something related to kitchens. Choosing Home/Kitchen from the list – with every user category selected – brings up a total dataset class of over 74,000.

Digging a little deeper

Okay, so now you’ve got 74,000+ possible people to target, so you’ll want to whittle this number down to find your ideal customers. Just keeping the Email box checked immediately cuts the list to about 17,000. If you’re interested in using direct mail for marketing purposes, you’ll see that around 10,000 of these consumers have postal addresses you’ll be able to get. For strictly mobile purposes – both AAID and IDFA – that number goes back up to just over 39,000.

See what your customers are up to in real-time

One of the biggest benefits of this targeting is that you can learn about individual search and buying habits as they are happening. For example, if certain individuals buy a cookbook online, you will know about it immediately. And, if you sell cookware, you can right away serve them an ad or send a promotion for your products. Real-time targetingwill get you on someone’s radar exactly when they’re in the buying mood.

Find customers wherever they are

In addition, through cross-device matching, you can keep tabs on buyer behavior across all of their devices, including computers, tablets, and phones. This also includes other avenues, such as browser cookies, email address, and postal address. No matter what they’re doing or where they are, you will be able to find people who are most interested in what you’re selling.

Take ourTaxonomy Explorer tool for a test drive

Whatever industry your business is in, our database is almost certainly full of people who would make great customers. Test it out here, and for more information, please contact us.

The pros and cons of marketing media

A successful marketing campaign depends on several elements. You need to create a marketing plan, determine your target market, and then decide the best way to reach those potential customers. Data from BDEX will give you great insight into who is most likely to be interested in your product or service. We collect real-time data based on actual customer behavior, from recent online activity, via store POS (point of service) systems, plus geofencing technology, which tracks when people have visited a physical store.

Choosing the right marketing media

Once you have your target market, you must choose marketing media that will give you the best results. Which ones you choose will depend on several factors, including your budget and the “personality” and preferences of your target market. The vehicles you choose to target millennial males will be very different than if you’re targeting women 65 and older. Targeted marketing media can include email, direct mail, social media advertising, mobile advertising, website ads, and telemarketing, among others.

Let’s take a look at various marketing mediums and discuss the best practices for each

Email marketing

Targeted emails deliver your message directly to existing or potential customers. Email campaigns are one of the most effective marketing vehicles, as the open rates for a well-targeted and executed campaign can be pretty high. According to Adobe.com, email open rates can be as high as 20-30 percent.

Sales emails have eight times more opens and clicks and can produce six times more ROI than other types of email

Email is the third-most-influential source of information for B2B audiences

One thing to note is that you need permission to send emails. Every country has different rules and some are much more strict than others. For instance, the European Union recently enacted GDPR, which set new rules on how personal information can be used. If you violate the terms, your company could face fines or worse. Canada and the US also have their own laws. Basically, you shouldn’t send marketing emails unless someone has opted in or subscribed, whether the person provides an email at a physical store or fills out an online form. The alternative is to work with an Email Service Provider or ESP that maintains an email opt-in list. In this case, they can send the emails for you to their opted-in users.

Online and social media campaigns

Online marketing campaigns can include digital ads on related websites or blogs frequented by your target market. Online marketing can also include served ads that appear based on the online activity of your potential customers, including purchases or Internet searches. Your campaign might also include paid advertising on a search engine like Google. Basically, you pay Google to advertise your content to customers based on keyword searches, which captures them at the very moment they are most likely to take action.

Another effective means of online marketing is advertising on social media sites. These sites allow you to target ads based on factors like location, gender, age, marital status, and hobbies/interests. You can reach a relatively large number of people without spending a lot of money. Which social media site you choose will depend greatly on your target audience. Teens and millennials tend to use Instagram over Facebook, for instance.

Direct mail marketing

Direct mail remains an effective marketing medium, especially with certain target segments. For instance, senior citizens might not be online as much or be as tech savvy with their phones, but they are more likely to read their mail. A big advantage of this medium is that you don’t need any sort of opt-in or permission to send a postcard. On the other hand, your piece can easily go straight in the trash. This medium is also more expensive as you must pay to have the piece produced, printed (by the thousands), and then mailed.

Phone marketing

Although telemarketing has gotten a bad rap, phone calls can still be an effective method of reaching your target audience. It can be even more effective when applied to B2B marketing. However, be aware that there are regulations you need to follow in order to avoid fines. You must get permission in order to call cell phones. You also want to make sure your data is as up to date as possible. Check for things like a change of phone number or address. If you are calling a business, ensure your contact is still with that company or if they have changed positions. Generally speaking, businesses do have the ability to call past or existing customers.

An effective marketing campaign is all about determining your target market and then deciding which marketing vehicles will best reach those people. Each vehicle has pros and cons, so you must decide which will be the most cost-effective and give you a better ROI.

BDEX can help you create an effective marketing campaign by providing real-time data via over 700 million device ID connections and more than 900 billion data signals available through our proprietary Data Exchange Platform. Call us at 917-410-6616 or send an email to info@bdex.com to start putting this information to work for your business.

Making sure you get the best data

Finding a company to provide data services has never been easier. There are dozens of them, all just waiting to provide you with consumer data. Neustar, Acxiom, Infogroup, etc. But some of these companies try very hard to sell customers data that they don’t want, that they don’t need, and they can’t even use.

“Philip” runs a computer shop in Pennsylvania. He is trying to get a bit more foot traffic into his brick-and-mortar store, so he decides to send out some direct mail, or perhaps try to target some online advertising. In order to do that, he contacts a company that provides consumer data, so that he knows whom he is advertising too.

Unfortunately for Philip, the company he chose lumps data together that he doesn’t necessarily need. Now he has to sieve through a wide range of data about consumers just to find consumer data from the zip codes he cares about and the type of people he cares about. Further, that data probably doesn’t have actionable insights that indicate a prospect is actively looking for computers or related products – meaning they may not even be a prospect at all. And now he has a lot of useless data and doesn’t even know it until he uses it and gets no response – and this is data he spent his hard-earned money on.

The company he bought it from, of course, does not care. They wish to sell as much data as possible, regardless of the custom, personal experience they might be able to provide. And why should they bother providing such an experience? After all, they own more data than they know what to do with and have incentives to sell as much of it as possible.

Luckily, an alternative exists in the form of BDEX. BDEX specializes in providing a subscription model for data collection, allowing customers to buy only the data they want and need and none that they don’t. Philip can purchase data about consumers in Philadelphia that are looking for his products without having the hassle of sifting through information he doesn’t need. More than that, he’s getting more than just the data he would have with a single company. He’s getting access to the data available from many, many companies and sources.

This is because BDEX is partnered with about fifty major data providers, including Neustar, Acxiom, and InfoGroup. Customers using BDEX’s subscription plan get access to all the data these companies have licensed it to use. That means that subscribed customers get access to many of these companies’ benefits without having to build a relationship with them, and without paying for unwanted data – making their purchase truly customizable.

This access allows BDEX to aggregate data from discrete sources, filter them, and organize them in ways meaningful for the client. Ultimately, this piles up to 900 million mobile devices, 1.3 billion email addresses, and 220 million U.S. postal addresses, all part of the vast network providing data. This data is provided via purchase history, mobile apps, websites, supermarket clubs, geofencing, credit card providers, and more. Of course, not every customer needs to use all of this data. They can pick and choose what they want to receive in their subscription.

These fifty major data providers allow BDEX access to data of varying kinds. The core data comes in the form of consumer behavioral data, geofencing, audience intent, and demographic personal data. All of this is mined from sources like those mentioned previously and can be used in all sorts of marketing. These myriad sources provide a diverse quality and quantity of consumer data, ensuring that there is something valuable in it for any business. This turns BDEX into a marketplace where the best data can be selected and purchased.

This diversity of sources also gives a company an advantage against their competition. If every company in the area is using the same source of data, they will all be advertising to the same consumers. However, companies with access to more varied data, from more varied sources – along with actionable, real-time behavioral data that indicates a prospect is ready to buy – can both narrow things down to an efficient list and often target consumers whom others do not have access to.

All of this is readily available in a simple subscription model, without the need to interact with third parties or go through the hassle of sorting through unwanted data – saving you time and money, and vastly boosting the impact of your marketing efforts.